I debated at the beginning of camp creating a reflective teaching category on this blog. Now, I’m really wishing I had started it.
Since I didn’t, you can read about today. Today may very well end up being my favorite day of camp. We’ve survived having our site changed without warning on the first day of camp, grumpy parents, almost thunderstorms, a very rude neighboring camp.
And today made it all worth it!
We’re almost at the end of our second week of camp, and this week’s theme is physics. We’ve endured incomplete or impossible directions and uncooperative weather conditions to arrive at a lesson this morning on the physics of sound. I think this may have been the most successful lesson, both for us (I team teach with the other instructor) and the kids.
The concept was simple: build a cardboard rubber band guitar and plunk out a few notes on it. Most of the kids were expected to build it and ditch it. But they didn’t!
Many of them came to play their own compositions for us. A boy that we’ve barely gotten two sentences out of all week sang for us…of his own free will! In fact, he sang twice as part of a mock audition we were holding (which he won) for the person who would go by the name E-N tomorrow.
(Momentary backstory: We give the children name tags every morning, and many of them think it’s funny to "lose" them during the day by attaching them to other things, mostly park property. In an attempt to curb this behavior, we started calling any boy who did this some really girly name. It only seemed to encourage them further. One unfortunate boy earned the name "Erminegarde", and while he decided he liked the name, he wanted to be called by Ian because his name tag read "en". We told him he had to earn the name, and he has for the most part.
Today, he told us before playing his composition that he was auditioning to be E-N. Two of the other boys heard him, and decided to audition with him. I let him keep the name today, but we were so pleased and shocked the other boy actually jumped in that we agreed to let him be E-N tomorrow morning.)
The kids played their guitars until lunch, and then asked to take them back out after lunch. Some of them formed a band called the Ewoks (I told them that my nickname had been Ewok for a very long time earlier in the week.) They figured out what songs they knew and performed them for us. Some of them even struck out on a solo career.
One of them kept singing all manner of songs as off-key as he possibly could, so we told him he was singing the Seattle Blues. He sang through every break, much to the delighted giggles of the girls in our camp.
It was just a very fun and surprising day.
Posted by Rebecca as Reflective teaching at 4:55 PM EDT
No Comments »
I recently came across a post on the old Blues Eyes, Brown Eyes exercise from the 60s, and it reminded me of when we had to watch this video as part of our diversity awareness in a graduate education class.
Aside from the Brave New World-style brainwashing terms, it was really interesting to watch these poor, dear children taught a lesson in discrimination from both sides of the coin. What I thought was even more interesting was that our professor told us that this same teacher conducted this same experiment repeatedly throughout her career with the same results. Apparently in later years, parents felt that the experiment had no place in their child’s classroom and fought against her teaching it.
The method may have been a little extreme, but I’m willing to bet that most of the students who went through that experiment probably think carefully before they take a hurtful action toward somebody who’s different from them. It’s a lesson that we can all learn from, especially from the children who started out discriminated against and then became the majority.
Posted by Rebecca as Experiential Learning at 6:53 AM EDT
No Comments »
The first week of camp is over, and we had a blast. The kids even walked out talking about robotics and electrictiy. It was very exciting. I also learned that all of my sessions are full! Some of my kids tried to set up for later sessions last night, and found them all full! I’m so excited and surprised. Mine was the site that wasn’t supposed to have many kids because of dates and location, and we not only are full but have more kids begging to come back!
As a result of all the behind-the-scenes work I have to do for camp, the link dump is in brief form this week, and really, really short.
Posted by Rebecca as Link Dump at 9:05 PM EDT
No Comments »
The first week of camp is moving along quite well. The kids are great, the projects are fun.
I’ve also been blessed with a great instructor…who must hate me after today…
As I reflected on today, I realized fairly quickly that I’ve undermined her unintentionally. She’s a great teacher who is fabulous with the kids. Kids who stopped listening to her after I spent all morning teaching. She had the afternoon lessons, and when the kids wouldn’t listen, I stepped in every time and got them back on track.
It really wasn’t my place. They were her class at that point, and they weren’t out of control. I think I may have created the beginnings of a problem that I don’t want. I don’t ever want these children thinking that they don’t have to listen to the instructor, especially when she’s so compassionate.
This is something in myself that I’m going to have to keep a very close eye on.
Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility at 11:01 PM EDT
No Comments »
This week has been all about preparing for camp. Four whole beautiful weeks of doing science projects with children! In a beautiful location! I’m so excited! I’ll be spending the weekend preparing each of my lessons for the week!
This week’s link dump is finally a manageable size. Posting may be sporadic as I enjoy the camp life, but hopefully these links will keep you entertained for a bit.
Social Networks
Introduction to social network methods
It may be that I’m trying to overcome some of my shyness, but I’m starting to think I ought to learn more about social networking.
People are connections
Networking is alive and well for more than just finding a job orprofessional collaboration.
It’s about the community plumbing: the social aspects of content management systems
I’m still struggling with this a bit.
More nursery school children going online
I first saw this right after coming home from subbing in a preschool. The children have a pen pal class in Minnesota, and they are all very comfortable using the computer. It probably won’t be long before we see a series of preschooler-friendly sites, including preschooler-friendly search engines designed to develop their informational literacy skills.
e-Portfolios
ESJ: a strategy for personal knowledge management
That reminds me…I need to go do some serious work on my wiki…
Creation of a learning landscape: Webbloggin and social networking in the context of e-Portfolios
I’m still working on planning out my e-Portfolio and trying to set up a reflective journal for science camp and tutoring.
Posted by Rebecca as Link Dump at 11:09 AM EDT
No Comments »
I have been very blessed over the past couple of months. After four years of not being able to find a teaching job in the type of setting I prefer, I found two. The two hired me within days of each other, and so both managers were very willing to work around the other’s schedule.
I, of course, was thrilled. To get to do what I love again, and to find a way to make the part-time scene work for me? It was wonderful.
I love both jobs, and if I could get more hours at both without having to reduce hours at the other, I’d do it in a heartbeat!
This summer, I’m working full time for one of the jobs in the day camp program. This meant I had to cut my availability by four hours at the other job. The other job has recently seen a change in management, and while the new manager is very nice, she’s a bit short-sighted at times.
We were talking about the various trainings and such that she wants to put me and a coupleof other teachers through. My training is being postponed until camp finishes in August. This is fine by me, because it gives me hope for more hours with a company I love (and it means I won’t have to go back to subbing for a company that makes me nervous at times). The problem is the way she addressed me, as if she was annoyed at having to work around the other job.
I love both. I love getting to teach math and science in a relaxed atmosphere, trying to convince girls that math and science are very fun and have the best toys. The worst thing in the world for me right now would be to discover that one of the jobs may try to corner me into leaving the other.
Hopefully, everything will work out, and I will get to continue working in two jobs I love.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 12:19 PM EDT
1 Comment »
It would be fair to say that part of the reason I have never wanted to go into a traditional classroom setting is because I don’t agree with many of the traditional assessment methods. Of course, I then went to work for a company that creates standardized tests, both as a scorer and as a content editor. Now I work for a tutoring program where we have to assign grades to every single activity the student does.
I feel a bit hypocritical.
The theory behind assessment is a simple one: to gauge whether or not the student has accomplished the learning objective. For some reason, someone decided that the way this is best accomplished in the continental US is by assigning pieces of paper with strings of words crafted carefully into questions to elicit a response from the student. This really only tests the student’s knowledge of the theory behind the learning objecting. In many cases, it doesn’t test the child’s practical knowledge.
When we create our learning objectives, we generally have a change in behavior that we want to produce in the student. The learning objective does not address how we want to change that behavior. It merely states what we want to change.
So many teachers take the time to create relevant learning situations for students to help them learn both the theory and the practical of the learning objective. They create worksheets, hands-on projects, and relevant culminating projects to help the student grasp the concept. They then give them a test on a piece of paper that asks them to talk concretely about the individual aspects of what they elarned, generally out of context. That’s the first problem with assessment. It moves the student out of context.
This is where authentic assessment could actually be a more useful assessment. It’s often avoided becasue it doesn’t provide a simple number-crunching way to assign a grade. Insteada rubric must be develped, and each student must be graded against themself instead of a number crunching scheme. But sometimes, it gives a much more relevant picture of what the student ahs actually learned. The student who excels in coursework, but chokes on every exam might very well be one who would benefit more from an authentic assessment.
In schools, each skill builds on the previous. We start by checking for prior learning. There is a continual assessment going on to make sure a student has actually learned a skill. In the corporate world, this continual assessment isn’t quite as persistent. An employee goes to a training. It’s assumed that they will come back to work and use the new skills in their job. This would seem like reinforcing, but what happens when it is a skill that isn’t used frequently. The employee may have taken notes during the training, but with everything going on they may have forgotten temporarily how to implement that skill. In these corporate settings, the only assessment given is whether or not the employee can effectively and immediately transfer the skills to their tasks. It’s balck and white, pass and fail. No wonder so many employees are a nervous wreck!
It is important to keep assessment authentic and persistent. Very few people learn everything they need to in a single sitting.
Posted by Rebecca as Teaching methods at 9:12 AM EDT
No Comments »
One of those hidden talents I love having showed up tonight. A friend who is running a day camp in Illinois needed some science activities that were crafty enough to work in her program. I had a list of ten ideas for her fairly quickly.
This is the kind of work I have excelled at for a very long time. You need a program on a science topic with related hands-on activities? I’m so your girl! I would love nothing more than to start up a part-time career as a curriculum consultant.
I used to do this kind of work all the time in my museum career. We needed a workshop on a particular topic, and could have it developed within a day if necessary. That was including R&D time if it was a topic I was unfamiliar with. I loved it!
I love the resarch. I love being forced to think quickly or brainstorm on short notice. I love looking at how the same topics can be wrapped several different ways. I love the way you can weave disciplines together to create multidisciplinary lessons that don’t lose something in translation. It’s just exciting work for me!
…and it felt so nice to do it again.
Sorry for the brag-fest, but I thought it might be nice to share a talent not readily obvious from either my resume or this blog.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 9:12 PM EDT
No Comments »
I hope everyone had a great week. Mine has been a bit of both the happy and the sad. The very first club I started teaching for Science Adventures wound down for the school year this week. However, I have done a lot of good work on the business, and I think I have talked myself into going back to grad school!
This week’s link dump is going to be another biggie as I’m still clearing out all the stuff I had saved in my clippings folder. So let’s hop to it!
I’m still sorting out the way I’m going to do these, so please bear with me as this feature goes through its growing pains.
Posted by Rebecca as Link Dump at 10:52 AM EDT
No Comments »
Explaining my teaching background to those who have existed solely within the K-12 atmosphere has always been something of a fruitless pursuit. Getting them to accept me as a real teacher with real teaching experience was pretty much a lost cause in Texas. (Thank goodness Washington state is a bit more open-minded on the matter!)
What is this troubling, invalid background? Well, in brief, I specialize in informal education, curriculum development, and hands-on experience. Somehow, informal education is considered related to "formal" education about the same way curriculum development is considered related to instructional design, and hands-on learning is that newfangled Montessori concept now favored by most preschools, kindergartens, and math classrooms. These are the areas of education that just really get me out of bed in the morning.
I can defend the last two fairly easily. They have a concreteness to them. Defending informal education has been the real struggle, though. It’s an abstract concept that means so many things to so many people. For many, it’s an unstructured situation where learning may or may not occur accidentally. To me, the one who made it her life for several years, it’s neither. It’s a carefully thought out encounter where the learner will walk away with something useful. It’s not always what I intend them to walk away with, but they will indeed walk away with some sort of new knowledge.
Informal education can take place just about anywhere, be conducted by anyone knowledgeable on the available topic, and be used with any age group. It often requires a bit of initiative, creativity, and storytelling to make the encounter compelling.
Posted by Rebecca as Teaching methods at 10:20 AM EDT
No Comments »
